Ted Hill (trade unionist)

Edward James Hill, Baron Hill of Wivenhoe (1899 – 14 December 1969), known as Ted Hill, was a British trade unionist.

Born in London, Hill served with the Royal Marine Engineers during World War I, joining the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Shipbuilders in 1916.^[1] He spent time mending boilers for P&O, and in his spare time was a wrestler.^[2] In 1934, he worked alongside Anuerin Bevan to organise a national hunger march.^[3]

By 1939, Hill was the London delegate to the executive committee of the Boilermakers, and in 1948 he was elected to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). In 1949, he was elected as General Secretary of the union, and soon acquired a reputation as a left-winger, aligned with the Labour Party but often critical of its policies - a supporter of unilateral disarmament and generally an opponent of militarism.^[1] In 1953, he was censured by the TUC for making a speech contrary to its policies, the first occasion on which the body is known to have censured one of the members of its General Council.^[4] During the UK engineering strike, 1957, he famously asked "what's in this productivity for my members?"^[1]

In 1961, Hill served as President of the TUC.^[5] Following a succession of demarcation disputes, Hill led a 1962 merger with two other unions with large presences in shipyards, the Associated Blacksmiths, Forge and Smithy Workers' Society and the Shipconstructors and Shipwrights' Association, remaining leader of the renamed "Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers".^[1] He also became President of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. In 1965, he retired from all his union posts, joining the Central Training Council. Two years later, on 21 September 1967 he accepted a life peerage,^[1] taking the title Baron Hill of Wivenhoe, of Wivenhoe in the County of Essex,^[6] having taken his title from the town of Wivenhoe, where he lived in a terraced house.^[3] He died suddenly in late 1969.^[1]

After Hill's death, Josef Frolik claimed that he had been a KGB informer; Hill's widow strongly denied the claim.^[3]

References

1. "Obituary: Lord Hill of Wivenhoe", The Guardian, 16 December 1969, p.7
2. "Lord Hill", Montreal Gazette, 16 December 1969, p.45
3. Tom Parkes, "At last, researcher goes public with Cold War list naming lord as KGB spy", Daily Gazette, 29 June 2009
4. Jerry Ward, "The Headless Giants of the T.U.C", The Observer, 9 July 1961, p.32
5. Details of Past Congresses, Trades Union Congress
6. The London Gazette: no. 44414. p. 10345. 22 September 1967.